


By the Dashboard (Night)Light

by penlex



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: (as in it's 99 percent Comfort), Cuddling & Snuggling, Family, Fluff, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penlex/pseuds/penlex
Summary: Jason's old bedroom at the manor is still the same in the ways that count.





	By the Dashboard (Night)Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hittooclosetohome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hittooclosetohome/gifts).



> prompt: platonic bed sharing
> 
> Doesn’t Red Hood wear a helmet that would protect him from the plot device, you might ask. Yes, yes he does. But this particular plot device brings you cuddling so just accept it in all its lackluster glory.

The injury itself isn’t particularly bad. Or at least, it’s not particularly bad for  _them_ , for what they do, and not for Jason especially. But it is on his head, and it does bleed a lot, and even the Red Hood isn’t so much of an adrenaline junkie that he’d parkour all the way home when he doesn’t have to and he’s feeling woozy. So he catches a ride back to the Cave with Dick and Tim in Dick’s anti-Batmobile.

Jason has no idea how he ends up convinced to stay the night. No one else seems to mention it out right, but surely even wooziness isn’t enough for him to decide on it on his own. Whatever the case, Jason ends up borrowing a set of Bruce’s pajamas. He marvels for a moment at the fact that they’re small on him. The last time he slept here, in his old room, Bruce was larger than life.

Before Jason settles down into the bed, he plugs in his old night light. He can’t believe Bruce (or was it Alfred? Both? Maybe Dick.) kept it, honestly sometimes still can’t believe he was ever allowed to have it in the first place at the age Bruce took him in. Then again, it’s not often that Bruce did things the way anyone Jason knew before him. The night light is shaped like a vintage muscle car, with headlights and windows that glow. It makes Jason smile, and he feels warm and young as he crawls under the covers.

So of course he has a vicious nightmare.

His throat hurts when he jerks awake, but he can’t tell if it’s from screaming or from  _not_ screaming. Jason blinks up at his tweenhood ceiling in the shallow darkness and counts out his breathing. He eventually manages to slow his heart rate and calm down, but he doesn’t feel ready to go back to sleep yet. So he’s still awake when the door creaks open.

It’s Damian who comes through on silent feet. He glances over at Jason’s night light but if he has any judgement on it he keeps it to himself (which isn’t like him, as far as Jason has known, so he probably doesn’t). When he gets closer to the bed Jason sees that Damian’s pajamas are covered in farm animals, so maybe it’s just that he’s aware he doesn’t have a leg to stand on there.

“Did I scream?” Jason asks. He doesn’t apologize for if he did. Damian shakes his head, but climbs underneath Jason’s covers with him anyway. Jason’s confused, but he lets it happen without fuss. As far as he knows, he and Damian aren’t that close. Well. Jason isn’t really that close with any of the so-called ‘Bat Family’ if you get down to brass tacks about it. If he had to pick one to say he has the least distance with it’d be Dick, but that doesn’t mean they get along. It’s not that Jason minds Damian. In fact, he kinda likes the kid’s style. But right now Damian is curling up underneath Jason’s arm in bed with him, and that? That’s a little beyond ‘not minding’ him.

But Damian’s body is warm, and his pajamas are adorable, and he hasn’t pestered Jason with a single question or plagued him with a single guilty look. So Jason hugs him close, and upgrades their closeness level in his mental catalog, and eventually falls back to sleep.

Jason wakes up again unknown hours later, when his subconscious finally makes him aware of another presence in the room. He tenses instinctually, bracing to protect Damian who is still asleep in his arms, but before he does anything embarrassingly rash he realizes who the third person is. It’s not quite Batman, but it’s not just Bruce either. Jason relaxes out of combat readiness but remains tense, his arms wrapped tight around Damian like he’s scared to have him taken away. The shadowy figure by the closed door doesn’t move or speak, softly lit on one side by the night light.

“Gonna warn me offa bein’ a bad influence on your baby boy?” Jason mutters. He keeps his voice low and soft so as not to disturb Damian, and unfortunately that takes most of the taunt out of the words. Instead he just sounds sad and resigned. There’s a very long, uncomfortable pause from the shadow. Then he steps forward, and resolves himself into Bruce.

“I was checking up on you, actually,” he says. Jason doesn’t respond, not sure whether to doubt Bruce’s words as usual or to accept them. “You had a nightmare.”

“I have a lot of those,” Jason grumbles, unimpressed. Bruce tips his head in acknowledgement.

“So does he,” he says, nodding at Damian. And then, even quieter, he admits, “So do I.”

The silence stretches out again in the darkness between them, less uncomfortable than it could be, than Jason would have expected it to be. Damian shifts a little, mumbles something indecipherable in his sleep. Jason’s attention is grabbed away from Bruce entirely to look down at… yeah, at his little brother, snuggling deeper into his arms.

“Would-” Bruce starts, stutters out when Jason flicks his eyes back up to him. Jason almost forgot he was even there. He can’t remember the last time he wasn’t helplessly over-conscious of Bruce’s presence. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Jason thinks about it for a moment before he decides on his answer. Honestly, it seems pretty awkward and terrible. But here in Jason’s old room things are different. His muscle car night light is glowing, and he just had a nightmare.

Jason shrugs silently, avoiding Bruce’s eyes, and nods behind himself at the space in the bed unoccupied by himself or Damian. Bruce steps around the bed and when he goes out of view Jason shuts his eyes, like he can pretend things really are like they were if he just doesn’t look. He feels the cooler air of the room tickle down his neck as Bruce pulls the covers back, the dip of the mattress and the warmth of his body as he climbs in.

It is pretty awkward and terrible at first but then Bruce starts to rub Jason’s back, up and down, hypnotically slow and consistent. The tension slowly bleeds out of Jason’s body, and he falls back to sleep even faster this time.


End file.
